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Corn Beef Hash

A baked hash of minced corned beef, potatoes, butter, and optional onion, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Corn Beef Hash

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix the minced corned beef and chopped potatoes.

  3. Season the mixture with salt and pepper.

Bake

  1. Add the butter and minced onion, if using, and mix well.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a baking dish and bake until heated through and slightly browned.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Corned beef
Provides the main savory meat flavor and bulk of the hash.
Potatoes
Supply starch and body, becoming tender and absorbing fat and flavor during baking.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the surface brown.
Onion
Adds aroma and savory sweetness as it softens in the mixture.

The step that matters

Baking until slightly browned. Baking long enough to heat the mixture through lets the potatoes soften and the surface brown through the Maillard reaction, which gives flavor. Stopping early leaves the centre cool and the top pale.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, potato, butter, pepper):

  1. Onionthe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Chivefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, potato, butter, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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